Big Man Japan

In Big Man Japan, director-star Hitoshi Matsumoto—a popular Japanese standup comic—plays Daisato, a sad sack reality TV subject living in shabby solitude after being left by his wife. Presented in mockumentary style, Big Man Japan finds Daisato being called on by the government to fight off a monster invasion. Daisato rushes off to a power station, where he is zapped with mega-voltage-electricity that briefly turns him into a skyscraper-size giant with a hairstyle reminiscent of Jack Gance in Eraserhead. Daisato's double life has its own backstory: he comes from a long line of monster fighters, but today's Japan has little admiration for his heroic skills (he's mostly saddled with complaints about the environmental damage left from his battles). Even worse, the monsters are not the Godzilla-Rodan variety, but weird creatures like Smelly Baddie, who stinks up Tokyo with the “feces of 10,000 humans.” Big Man Japan alternates between Daisato's humdrum life and his battles with a successive wave of monsters, but the intentionally cheesy special effects and Daisato's low-key personality often work against the silly story, and the fun wears thin before long. Optional. (P. Hall)